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UT Center Gets $6.9 Million Contract to Serve OSHA

KNOXVILLE — The University of Tennessee’s Construction Industry Research and Policy Center has been awarded a $6.9-million contract to provide technical services to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for the next five years.

William R. Schriver, research director at the center, will direct the project, which is a continuation of related work the center has been doing since 1987.

The Construction Industry Research and Policy Center (CIRPC) is a unit of the College of Business Administration. Its mission is to collect and disseminate accurate information about the construction industry to enhance the operations of various government programs concerned with construction.

The services to be provided to OSHA are twofold.

First, CIRPC will select about 3,000 active construction projects each month for safety inspections by OSHA’s field staff.

Second, CIRPC will analyze the direct and contributing causes of fatalities at construction sites nationwide each year. This analysis will be based on information OSHA collects during fatality investigations.

There were 753 construction fatalities inspected by OSHA in 2005, the last year for which data are available.

Schriver said that in spite of a general decline in work fatalities, construction work continues to be one of the most dangerous industries in the nation in terms of serious injuries and deaths.